Saturday, February 25, 2012

From Oscars to Gypsy

My baby pink silky top and puffy white skirt stood out against the skin tight black, checkered occasionally with a solid red za-za-zing dress whose owners maintained consciously unaware expressions of how great they looked. Rather than my own inner self-acknowledgement adding joy to the night's event, knowing I looked pretty was the only thing that kept me from fainting as the room was crowded and "I can only take three or four people in a room before I start to feel uncomfortable," I admitted to a former classmate afterward. Feeling the night's impending claustrophobia fifteen yards away at the coat-room, I attached myself to two fellow Italian 1 former cohorts, but not without asking meekly first, with a touch of desperation in my voice.
It was an advertising awards ceremony. A professor whom I'd never met had entered a photograph I had taken for a class last semester and it had won a prize. She emailed me and said it was a great honor, and had said "it's like the Oscar's of the marketing world." I bought a pretty pink shirt just for the occasion. I had thought it would be the high heels that would bother me that night, but when I looked down several times throughout the event it was to make sure I didn't see too much flesh against pink.
The next two hours was a pattern of announcements, followed by clips/prints, followed by claps, with fifteen to twenty seconds in between the clapping. I tried to clap queenishly.
I respect the accomplishments, talent and hard work of the winners, but I'd surmise this event was more about being seen than to be honored.
There were a few funny commercials, a few inspiring advertisements and a few pretty pictures. Mine came on, and went off in a blink of an eye.
Next came the long-awaited ordervs, when the hand clapping was over. I had three helpings, but piled the second two on one plate. Delicious but also free! I believe the winners in the 'Student' category appreciated these the most, and I tried my very best not to "stuff my face."

I had actually almost skipped out early of this event because I had another concert to film for my film class that was scheduled a short time after the black tie affair began, but as luck would have it - the concert was playing on the first floor of the same building!
The name is Hewn. Look them up. They're a band, headed by a young man I know/knew a few years back.
I checked my gypsy bag out from the coat room wherein I deposited my baby-pink clutch (/wee purse). I made my way downstairs.
Hewn was playing to such deafening levels, all I had to do was follow the cavernous sound. Immediately the tension I had felt leading up to and throughout the black tie event ceased without my noticing it. Gypsie punk rock music assimilated itself into the dimly lit room tinting the listeners blue and the stage players a rebel red. I was again out of place, but this time over-dressed. I didn't care. I scouted the crowded theatre for a good angle to shoot from with a good view of the stage and my eyes landed on the steps leading up to the balcony seats. Halfway up would afford me a good view of the stage, I decided, and made my way up the steps, but didn't get more than four steps up before my heel caught onto the step. I pulled myself back up and made it another step before it happened again. And then again. And again, almost pulling me down each time. It was obvious I wasn't going anywhere on mini-stilts. I whipped off my heels, stuffed them in my satchel and pulled out my camera from the same, filming from my darkened corner on bare feet covered by a thin layer of ancient tights. No one would care about the runs down my stockings in this venue.
I got some pretty good footage, I think, and the hardest part was not only being unable to get out on the floor to dance and go crazy, but I couldn't even tap my foot without upsetting the camera. To be around music and not feel the beat was torture, but my camera-capture was the priority, so I made the sacrifice.
The music ended three songs after I arrived, but I had recorded enough, and skipped away happy as a clam, after whipping out my handy ballet slippers from the same pack, so I wouldn't be thrown out on my way out.

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